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Topic: Recipes in one place? (Read 1769 times)

Excuse me if this already exists, but I was wondering whether it might be a good idea to have a repository of recipes. As a newbie, my head is spinning from all of the bits of information spread through the boards. (I am curious to know from Jeff V how solving the pizza making challenge compares with the Rubik's Cube.) Maybe for each category that already exists, (Neapolitan, NY, etc) there could be a recipe repository where a newbie such as myself could start out, trying a few different ones, and then delving into the myriad details from there.

I don't know if this capability exists with this software, but it would be nice if users could give a recipe a star, indicating they liked the recipe. Then the most highly recommended ones could percolate to the top.

Many of the best recipes evolved over time and, hence, are scattered all over the forum, sometimes in pieces in different posts. Is there any particular style in which you are interested? We do have some groupings of recipes but it will help to know if you are interested in a particular style, say, Neapolitan. For example, in response to a similar request from another member, I tried to aggregate some of my favorite Neapolitan dough recipes in one place, at http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,3673.0.html. I still have a couple of remaining threads on the Neapolitan style to reread to find other favorite recipes, whether they are mine or those of others, but it will be a while before I get to that task. The relevant recipes will be referenced in the above thread.

To show you how green I am, I'm not sure if what I am interested is NY or Neapolitan. Last summer we had some amazing pizza in Naples, and so I would be more than happy with that. On the other hand, I love several ny pizza places. To be honest, I find that 90% of the pizza places in NY are a style that is just really boring: uninteresting dough, and cheese and sauce not much better. I like Patsy's, although the dough is only ok as far as my taste buds go. What I really loved was Vinnie's pizza on the Upper West Side, which went through what seemed to be a five year death rattle and then finally expired a couple of months ago. But I just loved the dough: relatively thick, the right amount of chew, and a nice tanginess. The cheese and sauce were just run-of-the-mill.

Anyway, long story short, I think I'm looking for a couple of classic Neapolitan recipes that I can start with. On Jeff V's recommendation I've ordered a couple of Italian and one sourdough starter from sourdo.com, and it sounds like I'm in for some major learning in that department!

Once I've got a couple of Neapolitan pies under my belt, and assuming I am still marginally sentient at that time, I would like to try a NY.

Since you have been to Naples and sampled their pizza, and since you have a wood-fired oven, Caputo 00 flour, and a couple of good starters on the way, I think you may want to start with the Neapolitan style. However, I will not be the best one to guide you on this style. Since I do not have a high-temperature oven, all of my efforts with 00 flours have been to try to adapt such flours to use in a standard home oven. As you will learn as you read materials posted at the forum, there has to be the proper balance and match between the dough formulation and the oven, principally the thermodynamics aspects of the oven. In my case, I found it necessary to modify basic 00 dough formulations by using lower hydration levels and using thicker doughs to make them work better in my home oven.

Fortunately, we have several members with expertise in using high-temperature ovens to make the Neapolitan style pizza. These include pizzanapoletana (Marco) and Bill/SFNM, both of whom have extensive experience with high-temperature wood fired ovens and have posted widely on the subject, and Jeff Varasano and scott r, both of whom have extensive experience with 00 flours and Neapolitan style pizzas baked in their modified home ovens. It pays to read what these four members say about Neapolitan style pizzas and high oven temperatures. And, if you are interested in achieving the most authentic Neapolitan style, I would read all of Marco’s posts, as I have done several times. Each time I have done this, I have had a few “ah-ha” epiphanies. Marco is the quintessential expert on the Neapolitan style. Much of what I learned from Marco on that style evolved over time, including occasional missteps, and is embodied in this thread: http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,986.msg8806.html#msg8806.

Until you activate the starters that are on their way to your place, and you have gotten them to the point of usability, there are other 00 dough formulations that you might consider that call for using commercial yeast. Or you can try a NY style. If you choose to go that route for now and you can describe the characteristics of the NY style that you favor, in terms of crust thickness, crust sweetness, rim size, etc., we should be able to find a NY style dough formulation for you to try.